The Baby Briefs: A Christmas Blessing in Disguise

By the time December of 2007 arrived, Mike and I had been waiting nearly a year through the adoption process.  We had seen ourselves through a scam as well as a birth mom who had decided to parent just 24 hours prior to the expected birth of her daughter.  Our agency had failed to communicate with us and we felt completely unsupported by their lack of effort or attention.  In light of that, we cashed in our chips, abandoned any hope of recouping the 10k we had given the agency and rolled the dice with a new counselor.  We had opened our profile wider than we had originally thought we were comfortable with and still no potential birth mothers had wanted to consider us beyond a look through our book.

But then, just before Christmas we received word that there was situation that posed very little risk to us emotionally and financially.  The baby was due to be born soon so we wouldn’t have to place our hearts on the chopping block for an extensive time and a great deal of the money we’d be paying would be secured until the proper paperwork was to be signed.  Everything seemed like it was a true Christmas miracle.

We turned down the offer to be considered more seriously.

Why?  Why on earth, after almost 6 years of heartache and failures did we turn away from a situation that was all but hand delivered?  By the time that moment arrived I had said to myself what so many pre-adoptive moms have/will say.  “I’ll do whatever it takes to be a mom.  I will love any baby that is placed in my arms.”

Was I gun shy?  Cold feet?

I had come to a peaceful place in terms of my resolve to be a parent through adoption.  The birth mom met nearly all of the criteria that we had established as important to us.  What fell outside of our optimal selections wasn’t inexcusable or even slightly concerning.  But my heart didn’t ache for that baby.  I didn’t get the rush of excitement that so many parents talk about when they first heard the news of their baby-to-be. I never thought, “Oh please pick us.”  Not even once.

I had that feeling before; three months earlier when the birth mom who changed her mind at the last minute had first contacted me, I felt myself go numb instantly.  I wanted to meet her and talk to her everyday.  I was thinking about a gift I could give her at the hospital and of the scrapbook I’d make her for the future.  In the moments of our initial communication I felt a kin to her.  But in the situation that was at my feet, I felt concern for the birth parents and I wanted them to find the right adoptive family.  I just knew it wasn’t going to be us.

I’m not a religious person by any means, but I do believe that there is something divine at work in the adoption universe.  When that first birth mom told me she had decided to parent it devastated me because I was so emotionally invested in her as a person, as a mom, and to this day I think of that family and wish them happiness.  I needed to feel that instant connection and ultimately the pain of loss so that when those feelings were missing with the recent situation I would know not to jump into it just because “I’ll do whatever it takes…”

When our counselor called months later with the news of two other situations. We had to make a quick decision and the emotions of the past surfaced to guide us once again.  One of the placements was for a baby boy who was already born, papers were signed and it was just a matter of some legal pieces and a short drive.  The other was much more complicated, would be financially and emotionally more of a risk.  Something about that second situation was screaming at my heart and once again I knew it was the road we had to journey.  That road lead us to Anna.

I often hear people say that they could love any baby, and to be honest if there were never an Anna, but instead another baby with that same name I’d probably be none the wiser…  maybe.  But something about the journey through adoption does give me reason to believe that I was meant to be her mom- Anna’s mom.  Had I not initially miscarried, had I not failed so many IVFs, had we not left our first adoption agency, had the birth mom of the one situation gone through with her plan, had we not … there are too many variables in adoption that don’t exist when it is biology at work.  Something caused me to turn down placements that were at my fingertips.  Something caused me to chase a dream through countless nightmares only to come out with the greatest happiness imaginable.

Today when I hear people criticized for being “too picky” in their selection criteria or turning down potential matches, I bite my tongue.  Somehow it’s okay for a birth mom to be critical in her process, but not the adoptive parents.  Some people believe a couple who specifies religion, race, or medical history is being narrow-minded but I see it differently.  They are waiting for their miracle and to learn the lessons that will bring it to them.

Everyone is waiting for their Anna.

The Baby Briefs: Switching Gears

After the heartbreak of losing the second possible adoption situation I found myself somewhere between excited that something could happen and sickened at the notion that nothing did happen.  I wanted to think “third time’s a charm” but I was tossed back to the infertile days of believing close was as good as it would ever get.

We were nine months into our agreement with IAC and to date they had done nothing for us.  We did our own advertising and the two scenarios that didn’t pan out were the product of our own diligence, not theirs.  It was hard to believe that we could find the right placement in the three months that we had left on our contract.

Enter:  MM

A friend of mine had walked beside me through the past year of emotional torture.  She had a story so similar to mine that often I was confused about who was feeling what and when.  She and her husband has also gone down the path of multiple IVFs, miscarriage and heartache.  They too had found themselves working through adoption concerns and paperwork.  The only difference was… she had a son.  She had decided to pursue adoption several months after we had and not only was she shown to more birth parents, but she was receiving true support from her counselor while I was receiving the short speech each month from ours: “Just hang in there.  Adoption works.”  Adoption works?  hmmm…  maybe for the people who make money off of the emotions of the birth mom and adoptive parents, but certainly, adoption does not work for us.  I was defeated and discouraged.

At my wits end my friend suggested that I contact her counselor.  I explained that we were too far into our contract with IAC and that all of our resources were consumed by them.  We didn’t have the option to move on to another agency, attorney, facilitator… whatever.  My friend said, “Just call her and talk.  Just see what her thoughts are about what you might do next. You don’t have to pay her anything to talk.”  hmm…  this was a new concept, one I hadn’t heard from the adoption world.  Everything seemed to cost money- a lot of money.  I couldn’t imagine someone would just want to talk to me for free.

I couldn’t dial the phone.  The emotions were too close to the surface.  I emailed Tammy instead.  I thought it might be easier to hear that she couldn’t help us through email than if I heard a human voice tell me how pathetic my life had become.  I did leave my phone number out of courtesy, but surely, possibly an email might be free, but a phone call?  Time was money to the adoption professionals I had spoken to in the past and no one was going to call me just to talk.

What happened next was the single most pivotal moment in our five years searching for a family.  Tammy called me.  She listened for half an hour as I broke into tears venting all of the sadness, frustration, bitterness, emptiness that I had held for so long.  At the end of my wailing she said in a very quiet voice, “Jenna, you will be a mom.”  I had heard it before from friends, agency people, and family.  This pep talk was not a novel one.  But somehow, that voice resonated in a place that had been barren of hope and possibility.

With trembling hands and goose bumps across my back, I believed in her.  I believed in myself.

The Baby Briefs: Reliving a Heartbreak

I wanted to write this from scratch …  hind site can be so valuable.  But after digging through old posts on my previous blog, I felt the chills climb my spine.  Perhaps some of you will recall this experience as I do.

Dr. Jovial and Mrs. Hide

September 16, 2007

It’s 1:00 am, do you know where your child is?  I do.  We have another possible match in the works, and right now, our baby is resting comfortably waiting to be labored to us.  I know, I know, super exciting right?

Here’s the problem.  This isn’t a scam.  It’s the real deal.  Sounds like there isn’t a problem at all right?  Wrong.  With a real situation, there are real emotions.  It’s me.

Jovial. On the surface, I talk to her and am as calm as they come, as light-hearted and stressfree as possible.  I am the personificiation of support and compassion.  I laugh, I talk about our happiness and our plans for the future.  I leak a bit of my nervousness, but only enough to let her know that I am human so as not to be intimidating.

Hide.  Underneath I want to run and hide in my bed until this whole thing is over.  I want to sleep until the baby is born and then have it just show up at my house and life will go on.  I’m a mess of anxiety right now and I don’t trust any emotion.  I’m digging for issues and trying to find something wrong with this situation so it won’t hurt as badly when it doesn’t work out.  And let’s face it.  These things just don’t work out for us.

Jovial. I know what you will say.  At some point, Jenna have to give yourself fully to this process and trust that it will happen.  I do, but I say that quietly, in small words, so that the universe might overlook this opportunity to slap me around some more.  A giant part of me has a running list of things to do before the baby is born.  THE baby, not OUR baby.  I know the gender, and yet, typing that feels too certain to me.  At the same time that I can’t type the gender on this keyboard, I have whispered in my head a million times, ‘My _________  will be born ______.”  The due date too, is a commitment I fear seeing in print.

Hide.  I want to not tell anyone, and even this post is being typed at 1:00am, under the cover of darkness. I am not completely comfortable that it will be read.  We spoke with only my parents, my sister, and our closest set of friends.  Even then, I kept trying to explain all the ways this could go wrong so that I wouldn’t have to admit that this might be the single most profound experience in our lives together.  When I hit the ‘publish’ button, I’ll be outed for the world to see and judge.  Why does this feel like de ja vu?

Jovial.  There is a real woman experiencing the most difficult choice in her life.  She is a wonderful person.  No pretenses about her.  She has her life on the right path.  This isn’t the drug addict in the back alley who got knocked up by someone she’d met once.  This woman is lovely and of all things, she wants to be a nurse, have a family and a life full of happiness. She will.  She is amazing.  I have such admiration for the choice she is making and I cannot find the words to express that.

Hide.  When I speak to her I feel like a baby stealer.  She is so nice and I am going to take her baby from her.  I know she wants that.  I do.  I just don’t feel like a savior.  I feel like a thief.  But she cries at the idea and while those tears are healthy, they break my heart.  My infertility has caused so much pain for people, and here it causes pain again in a strange roundabout way.

Jovial.  I think about our life changing.  I catch myself thinking about holidays and BBQs.  But not just the good stuff.  The real stuff too.  Temper tantrums, and time outs, poop filled diapers and snotty noses.

What a mess I am.  It’s comically ironic that when we filled out our adoption profile, we debated about a birthmother having severe mental illness.  With what’s going on in my own head right now, I think it best not to throw stones.

These are the moments that show you what you are made of.   Here I go again.

It was just a few days later…

Can You Literally Die of Sadness?

September 18, 2007

I got an email last night,

I’m writing to you because I have change my mind and decided not to go through with the adoption plan. I want to raise the baby myself. I have done a lot of thinking, and I couldn’t handle giving my first child away. I’m sorry. I wish that I realized that sooner.

I wrote earlier that I was heartbroken because I didn’t want to have a baby off the back of someone’s pain.  I didn’t want it to be that way…  but you know what?  I would have taken her and loved her just the same.

I was going to have a daughter.  Now I have another faceless, though not nameless, child to mourn.

And so the picture frame remains empty.

The Baby Briefs: A Phone Call

Our first phone call came nearly nine months after we contracted with IAC.  And interestingly enough, the birth mother did not find us through any kind of connection with them.  This woman found us from our website and a Google search of birth parents in the north eastern states of the US.

She was from Maine and she lived in a campground.  It was October and the weather has started to turn colder so she was sleeping in her truck.  She was pregnant and didn’t want the baby to come into the world in such a horrible situation.  She had no job, no phone, no friends.  She literally didn’t have a pot to piss in and no one to rely on for any kind of help. Wow, I was taken aback by how hard life must be for her, how scared she must have been. hmmm….  yet she managed to find us with a Google search?  That’s your first hint.

She was three months pregnant when she contacted us.  She was expecting a baby in April… or was it February… no it might be March.  That’s your second hint.

She already had a baby who didn’t live with her.  He lived with her mother, a woman who would be calling us later to make sure she agreed that we were the right parents for this other baby.  This woman would also be sending us a picture of the boy so that we could see what kind of baby we’d be getting. That’s your third hint.

We asked her if she could contact our agency so that there could be some exchange of information in the proper ways.  She said that she would, but didn’t.  That’s your fourth hint.

All of these should have been my hints too.  But they weren’t  We were too enamored by the idea that a woman had selected us.  We were clouded by the notion that the hellish wait through months after months of nothingness were over.  We just wanted it all to stop.

For several weeks Mike and I had regular phone calls with this woman.  I began to truly care for her and I was able to see how an open relationship might actually work in the adoption world.  I wanted to like her, I wanted to take care of her… and not because she was carrying the baby that might be ours, but because she seemed like a nice person with goals and good intentions.

Then she asked for money to help her though the colder nights, to get a place to stay, and to visit a doctor.  We once again asked her to call our agency and we explained that we couldn’t send her anything until we had some kind of confirmation of the pregnancy… we assured her it was just a formality and that we’d get through the red tape and move forward.
We never heard from her again.

We Interrupt This Program…

Just an aside to my regularly scheduled postings…

Some of you have emailed me asking if there is a way to subscribe to my new writings for AFC,  and now there is.  This link will bring you to my blog over there (by the same name) and you will see an option to subscribe to the feed.

Alrighty, carry on.

The Baby Briefs: Empowering the Profile

*I recognize that this is a highly controversial topic.  The sensitive nature of this may cause some of you to feel disconnected to this post while others may see a bit of themselves in these words.  As always I hope it can be appreciated that this was my journey and for that I hope you will not judge our choices.

There are two ways to look at the decision to broaden the profile. First, which was my initial feeling:  why do I have to change the kind of baby I would adopt to include other races, religions, disabilities, prenatal care etc. when, if I were fertile I’d be having a Catholic, white baby who received all the prenatel care the world could offer?   This is what I’d like to call the “bite your nose despite your face”  view.  See, in the bitter life of Jenna, I would dig my heels in and say that anything other than a baby that I would have otherwise conceived would have been unacceptable.  I waited and waited through months of nothingness for “my” baby to come; as if the baby that I couldn’t conceive myself was being conceived out there in a parallel universe and after she/he was going to be born it would land in my home and I’d be able to carry on with my normal life and pretend infertility and adoption never happened to me.

The second possible way to view this process is to deal with the reality as just that… REALITY.  The fact was that no one out in the birth mom world was going to be ME.  There are some wonderful birth moms out there who would give their babies the best prenatal care, lived a healthy lifestyle free of drugs and alcohol, and exercised regularly.   But was there also a birth mom out there with multiple college degrees, two cats, a dog, a nice middle class home near the ocean, a loving husband, a steady job, 5′5″, size 2, brown hair, green eyes,…  you see where this is going.  As Miracle Maker once told me, “Jenna, you are looking for you, and you aren’t going to place a baby for adoption.”  The fact was NO ONE who was in my situation in life would be placing a baby for adoption because the only person in my situation was me and I couldn’t have a baby.  So to think that I could expect a baby to come to me under these conditions was setting myself up for failure.  And that was what the first nine months of waiting was.  An utter failure.  No calls, no leads, no interest.  Nothing.

After accepting this, Mike and I had no choice but to sit down and look at our profile and see where we could let up on the requirements.  Did we need to have a baby would would look like us?  Did we need to have a baby whose birth mom hadn’t had a single drink of alcohol?  Would we love a baby less who had a chance of being overweight as an adult?   These were the questions.

It was interesting to see just how many places we were able to make some better decisions.  After all is it realistic that a birth mom has not a single drink during her pregnancy?  Most of my friends had several drinks before they even knew they were pregnant.  Was is reasonable that birth mom not want anything more than a letter every few years?  If I wanted her to love her baby enough to place him/her, I should hope she’d want more than a bulleted update once a decade.

This was the process.  For every area where we had specified a preference we asked ourselves if there was an option for negotiation in our hearts.  If we felt at all like we were making a concession we kept the original selection.  No child should feel like they were the product of a concession.

One area where we had a difficult time feeling comfortable was in gender….  I know, it sounds silly.  Let me explain.  When I miscarried our son I just never wanted to have a son again.  I felt like any other child, biological or adopted, would feel like they were a replacement to that baby.  No, strike that, it wouldn’t be the baby that would feel that way.  If I’m going to be honest, there would be a part of me that wondered what our first son would be doing, looking like, be interested in.  I didn’t want to impose that question mark on any other child.  At the time of the adoption process, that wound had yet to fully close.

Another area where we felt we couldn’t be flexible was with known disabilities.  As a teacher, I loved my kids with special needs more than some of my regular ed kids.  Some of them were so open to new ideas and accepted my help when the regular ed kids acted too cool for assistance.  But, depending on the severity of their challenges, I also had a very real sense of how difficult the lives were for their siblings, parents, and as adults, for the kids themselves.  My heart had felt broken from infertility so many times and I didn’t know if I had it in me to knowingly take on the unique challenges of a child with disabilities.  Loving this child wasn’t the concern, it was parenting that I didn’t think I was capable of doing.

Ironically, I knew that if we were to have a biological child, both areas would be a risk we would take and there would be no option.  It was odd that in adoption, I would have this choice.  I suppose that is where the empowerment came from.  Mike and I had given so much for the love a child and if we could some demands we’d make them in the areas where no biological parents could.

It’s a funny thing about life…  we seem to get what we need and that is not always what we think we’d want.

The Baby Briefs: The Waiting

Possibly one of the more excruciating parts of adoption is the waiting.  Imagine how hard the “two week wait” is during treatments cycles and add about…  oh let’s say a year to that.  It’s horrible.  Each day is like the first day of that 2ww and at the same time, it’s the last day too.  Anticipation and hope can drive you crazy.

For the first few weeks I was certain that each call was going to be THE call.  I logged on to our web site every day (okay, several times each day) and when the number of visitors increased I thought that certainly those people were potential birth moms just clamoring to get in touch with us.  I created a fiction in my head that they were sharing our profile with their loved ones and talking about how they wanted to get in touch with us quickly so that another birth mom didn’t scoop us up. True, it was me who was increasing the traffic.  When my own visits to the site were subtracted from the equation, a big fat zero remained.  And that’s how I felt about myself too.  ZERO.

And then those weeks went by and not so quickly they turned into months.

And months

and months

and… you see where this is going.  The picture became bleaker and bleaker until there wasn’t a picture anymore.  All that remained was a web site that was essentially dead on traffic, a bank account that was depleted and hope that was even more desolate.

IAC would send us an update on how many times our profile went out to their potential birth moms.  As it turned out we were seen an average of 5 times each month.  What ever happened to the cute young(ish) couple with great educations, decent looks, and a beautiful home near the ocean? Our facilitator explained to me that we weren’t marketable for the following reasons:

1.  We were too young, too close to the birth mom’s age to make her feel like we were competent and secure in our lives.

2.  We were too old for the birth moms who wanted a young couple with the energy to parent effectively.

3.  We lived in a cold weather climate and many of their birth moms were from the southern states and couldn’t imagine their kids not having sun all year round.

4.  We had cats and some birth moms are allergic to cats.

5.  We had dealt with infertility and therefore we didn’t appeal to birth moms who wanted to have their kids in a house full of siblings.

6.  We were a straight couple and some of their birth moms were looking exclusively for gay/lesbian couples.

7.  We were Catholic and some of their birth moms wanted a couple of a different religion or no religion at all.

Talk about feeling powerless.  Unless Mike and I faked our ages, pretended to be gay and moved to the south, it seemed that we didn’t stand a chance of finding our family.  I asked what we could do to make ourselves appeal to a these birth moms.  It came down to this…  the controversial compromise that just about every adoptive couple is asked to consider:  Broaden the profile to included a greater variety of races, religions, drug and/or alcohol abuse, known or unknown birth father, conception through rape or incest, known special needs or disabilities of birth mom or child, and limited or no prenatal care.

Ugh…  Just thinking about this made my head spin.  And yet there it was out there on the table where the world could judge me and where I had to face some realities about myself that I didn’t really consider.  Once again I found myself feeling bitter and betrayed by the world.  The thought in my head resounded, “No one in this world but an infertile has to deal with this kind of stuff when trying to build a family.”

Nomad No more… I Hope

I feel like a nomad.  This is the third blog I’ve started and already I’m feeling unsettled.  I’m starting ANOTHER blog over on a wonderful new site called Adoptive Families Circle. I don’t intend to abandon this blog, but I wanted to let you know that you can find me doing some writing over there as well.  Right now, I have reposted the first blog post from here and later in the week I’ll repost the second post.  After that I’ll be doing a couple the summarize the adoption process and then BAM!  I’ll be starting up with what is going on now.  Call me a bit restless to get to the current day status.  Judging by the content of some recent emails I’ve received, I’d say there are several of you who are equally as restless to find out where my little family is at in the world.

I really hope you’ll join me.  I hope you’ll bring your friends and add to the discussions.  I hope you’ll post a few nice comments here and there on the posts that I write, and mostly I hope that you’ll find some support for yourself.

The Baby Boxers: Parenting 101

I had actually forgotten about the seminar until I read Jenna’s post the other day.  Then, woosh! It all came back.  No, I’m lieing.  I actually don’t remember the majority of that time, just that I too felt like it was a massive pain in the ass.  But I do remember one thing and I’m so glad Jenna pointed it out.

The dad who spoke that day was worth all of the time and money I gave for the day.  Really, he was that influential.  Until then, I was totally on board with adoption, but I have to admit that I was hesitant about the reality of it.  I had imagined that we would be parents and I knew we would be adopting, but these people who spoke had actually done what we were just talking about.  I’ll be honest though, he scared the crap out of me.

I do think that hearing him tell us about not falling in love was important because it validated all of the the fears I had, but additionally there was a lot of anxiety that he also created.  What Jenna failed to write about what that he had been a dad for a few months. MONTHS!

This is a concept that I have to reiterate.  MONTHS!  I have heard of people not having a big moment of “aha” when their kid is born, but MONTHS?  That scared me.  How could I live in a house with a baby that screaming, pooping, puking, and otherwise inanimate if I didn’t absolutely love him/her?  That just didn’t enter into the equation when I considered adoption, or having a baby in general.

Jenna and I talked about this on the way home and we agreed to talk to our friends to see if they had ever felt like this.  And what do you think happened?  All of them, every single one of them, said that they loved their kids the moment they were born.  Not only that, but some of our friends were actually surprised that we were even thinking about this.  Others said, “Don’t worry, as soon as you hold her you’ll realize it was all meant to be.”  Talk about pressure!

I don’t want to give out advice when it’s not asked for, but if there is one thing I’d say to other adoptive parents I’d say, don’t listen to any other people’s experiences when it comes to the emotions of adopting.  They can be incredibly helpful when it comes to paperwork and directions, but the individual emotions that each person has will depend on their own perspectives.  Feel free to take what will mean something to you, and leave the rest.  There is too much pressure in having a baby but adoption is its own beast and I think it really magnifies whatever you bring to the table.

The Baby Briefs: Parenting 101

(apologies for not updating in a while.  A death in our family had my priorities reorganized for a bit).

As with so many parts of infertility, the next step of our adoption process left a certain thorn in my side, a bitter taste in my mouth, and eyes that may well have been stuck in the back of my head having rolled them so often.  This part, the parent preparation seminar, was truly a royal pain in the arse.

The name alone still strikes a nerve.  “Parent Preparation.”  ugh.  I could vomit.  In so many ways this was a slap in the face that I took entirely too personally.  The idea that Mike and I had spent tens of thousands of dollars in the hopes to become parents through IVF, and then followed that with thousands and thousands more to pursue adoption should have tipped off anyone who questioned that we weren’t “prepared” to become parents.

I went into this seminar with a bad attitude so I suppose the argument could be made that I created my own reality.  But here’s my own take on it.  A room filled with starving parents-to-be who each paid another hundred dollars or so to sit through 8 hours of a social worker telling us that we needed to be sensitive to our would-be child’s backgrounds, forcing us to participate in “get to know you” games (which, as a teacher, I feel as a hideous way to get people to know each other), and holding our adoption process hostage until the 8 hour course was completed is criminal.

And I don’t want to hear people respond to this post with things like, “it’s a small price to pay to have a baby.” Because, it’s NOT a small price, it’s part of a VERY significant price.  By the time we stepped into that seminar, I had already felt like my personal infertility story was attacked when I was told that “perhaps I wasn’t ready to let go of infertility” and I had already felt my heart torn our when my Dear Birth Mother Letter was rejected time and time again.  My ego was trampled on when I found the student’s notes of pity for me.  Now, upon entering the seminar, I was paying someone to tell me once again that I hadn’t thought it through fully and this seminar person was there to guide me in the right direction.

It took about 10 minutes to go around the room and have each couple introduce themselves and where they were in the process.  “Oh good, that was ten minutes I’ll never get back in my life.”  I suppose this was intended to create some kind of bond between us, but all it did was remind me that we aren’t the only ones hoping to become parents and that these people weren’t my allies, they were my competition.  I knew I’d never remember any of those people, not that I could see of even hear half of them who sat at tables twenty feet away buried in long folding tables.  Inside of half an hour my butt hurt and I had doodled through the pad of paper I had brought.

I could have probably spent the entire 8 hours daydreaming about springtime or reconfiguring a unit of study for my students.  I’m sure there were a lot of people there who found the lecture on “stages of development” informative.  I would imagine these are the people who didn’t already learn all about childhood and adolescent growth patterns in college.  But I had already passed those courses and gone on to live a life centered around teaching at these stages.  For me, it just wasn’t helpful to hear second hand what I did everyday of my life.  But luckily a beacon of interest refocused my attention.  Enter:  the guest speakers.  This panel was able to bring some first hand experience to the table.  As they filed into the room I felt like I was visiting a museum and these were the exhibits.  They were proof that at the end of this battle, there was happiness and some sign of life beyond paperwork, frustrations, check writing, and heartbreak.  One man in particular was able to afford us some very reasonable and very realistic advice.

“Don’t worry if you don’t fall in love right away.”  These words resonated with me immediately.  I looked at Mike and I could see he was fully engaged.  I think after all of the business of adoption, it was hard to feel connected to the process.  But there it was; a man who could have easily been Mike speaking about his adopted child several months after the placement was made. His words felt like a relief to the pressure building for that all important first meeting.  I knew it as soon as I heard them, and Mike did too.  These words would save my life one day.  And they did.